The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-09-14
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOkLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Woman's Opportunity"

Subject: "Woman's Opportunity
TEXT: $50 God created man in His o,Un
image, the image of God creuted He him,
male and female created He them. ."-Genesis
/, %.
In other words, God, who can make no mis-
take, made man and woman for specific
work, and to move in particular sphcrcs-man
to be regnant in his realm; woman to be domi-
nant in hers. The boundary line between
Italy and Switzerland, between England and
Scotland, is not more thoroughly marked
than this distinction between the empire
masculine and the empire feminine. So en-
tirely disSimilar are the fields to which God
called them, that you can no more compare
them than you can oxygen and hydrogen,
water and grass, trees and stars. All this
talk about the superiority of one sex to the
other sex is an everlasting waste of ink and
speech. A jeweler may have scale so
delicate that he can weigh the dust of dia-
monds; but where are the scales so delicate
that he can weigh in them affection against
affection, sentiment against sentiment,
thought against thought, soul against soul,
q mans world against woman'S world!
You come out with your stereotyped
remark, the man is superior to wo-
man in intellect; and then I open
on my desk the swarthy, iron-typed
thunderbolted writings of Harriet Martineau
and Elizabeth Browning and George Eliot.
You come on with your stereotyped remark
about womans superiority to man in the item
Of affection; but ask you where was there
more capacity to love than in John the
man, and John Summerfeld the Methodist,
and Henry Martin the missionary! The heart
Of those mon was 80 large that after you
had rolled into it two hemispheres there
was room still left to marshal the
hosts Of heaven and set up the throne
Of the eternal Jehovah. I deny to man
the throne intellectual. deny to woman the
throne affectional. No human phraseology
will ever define the spheres while there is
an intuition by which we know when man
is in his realm, and when a women is in her
realm, and when either of them is out of it.
No bungling legislature ought to attempt to
make definition, or to say: "ThiS is the line
and that is. the line" My theory is that if
Q woman wants to vote she ought to vote,
and that il a man wants to embroider and
keep house, he ought to be allowed to EN-
broider and keep house. There are masculine
women and there are effeminate men, My
theory is, that you have no right to interfere
sous Albany and Washington might as we'll
decree by legislation how high a brown
thrasher should fly, or how deep trout
should plunge, as to try to seek out the
height or the depth Of woman's duty. The
question of capacity will settle finally the
whole question, the whole subject. When
woman is prepared to preach, she will preach,
and neither Conference nor PreSbytery can
hinder her. When woman is prepared tC
move in highest commercial spheres, she will
s,,A on, fho vol nr6
40 boards Of trade can hinder her. want
woman to understand that heart and brain
can overly any barrier that politicians may
set up, and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question ofincapacity.
There are women, know, Of most undesir-
able nature who wander up and down the
no homes Of their own, or
forsaking their own homeS-talking about
their rights; and we know very well that they
themselves are fit neither to vote nor fit to
keep house. Their mission seems to be to hu-
initiate the two sexes at the thought of what
any one of us might become No one would
want to live under the laws that such women
would enact, or to have cast upon society the
children that such women would raise But
I shall show you this morning that the best
rights that woman can own, she already has
In her possession; that her position in this
country at this time is not one Of commisera-
tion, but one Of congratulation; that the
grandeur and power OF her realm have never
yet been appreciated; that she sits to-day on
! throne so high, that all the thrones of earth
piled on top Of each other would
not make for her q footstooL Here is the
platform on which she stands. Away down
below it are the ballot-bo1 and the Congress
ional assemblage and the Legislative hall.
Woman always has voted and always will
vote. Our great .grandfathers thought they
were by their votes putting Washington into
the presidential chair. No His mother, by
habits she inculcated, made him President. 1t
was Christian mothers hand dropping the
ballot when Lord Bacon wrote, and Newton
and Alfred the Great gov
erned, and Jonathan Edwards thundered Of
Judgment to come. How many men there
have been in high political station who would
have been insufficient to stand the test
to which their moral principle was put had
It not been for wifes voice that encouraged
sounded louder than the clamor OF partisan
ship! Why, my friends, the right of suffer
ago, as we men exercise it, seems to be
feeble thing. You, a Christian man, come
up to the ballot-boX and you drop your vote.
Right after you comes ibertine, or sot-
the offscouring Of the strickland he drops
bis vote; and his vote counteracts yours But
If In the quiet Of home life daughter by her
Christian demeanor, a wife by her industry,
q mother by her faithfulness, casts vote in
the right direction, then nothing can resist it,
and the influence Of that vote will throb
through tho eternities.
by chies anxiety then is, not that woman
have ether rights accorded her: hut that she.
BY the grace Of God, rise up to the apprecia-
ton of the glorious rights she already pos
sesses This morning [ shall only have time
to speak Of one grand and all-absorolng
right that every woman has, and that Is 10
make home happy. That realm no one mas
ever disputed with her. Men may come home
at noon or at night, and they tarry COM
paratively little while: but she, all day long,
governs it, beauties it, sanctifies it. 1t IS
within her power to make it the most attrac-
tive place on earth. It is the only calm har-
Dor in this world. You know as we'll as DO,
that this outside world and the business world,
is along scene of jostle and contention: The
man who has dollar struggles to keep it; the
man who has it not struggles to getit Prices
up. Prices down. Losses. Gains. Misrep-
resentations. Gougings. Underseling. Buy
ers depreclating salesmen e1aggerating.
Tenants seeking less rents landlords de-
manding more. Gold fidgetty. Struggles
about office. Men who are in trying to keep
in men out trying to get in. Slips. Tumbles,
Defalcations. Panics. Catastrophes. Q
woman thank God you have home, and
that you may be queen in it. Better be there
than wear Victoria's coronat. Better be
there than carry the purse Of Princess.
Your abode may be humble, but you can, by
your faith in God and your cheerfulness Of
demeanor, gild it with splendors such as an
npholsterer's hand never yet kindled. There
are abodes in the city-humble, two stories
four plain, unpapered rooms; undesirable
neightorhood and yet there is man
here this morning who would die on that
threshold rather than surrender IT,
Il 20 INhanavar hA thinks